FOLLOWING THE EUROPEAN UNION

Do you vote in EU-elections, btw, George?

Romania's first gift to the European Union - a caucus of neo-fascists and Holocaust deniers

2007/01/08 · The Guardian

The European far-right is expected to form its first transnational organisation next week by establishing a formal caucus in the European parliament.

Ironically, given the hostility of the far right to EU expansion, it is the accession of Romania and Bulgaria that has made the caucus possible. It is thanks to MEP's from the Greater Romanian party and the Bulgarian party Ataka that the group now meets the EU parliament's criteria for an official caucus.

East to west EU migration not slowing down

2007/01/04 · EU Observer

New figures suggest migration from ex-communist EU states to Ireland and the UK is not slowing down yet. Ninety thousand Poles alone registered to work in Ireland in 2006 compared to 65,000 in 2005, with over 250,000 new workers settling on the island since 2004. Net migration to the UK hit 400,000 in 2005 - almost double the level in 2004 and 215,000 more than officially stated by the British government, a study by UK consultancy Capital Economics says.

Polish construction workers in Ireland risk labouring 60 hours per week for just €300 pay, being tricked out of their wages and denied trade union rights, Polish daily Rzeczpospolita warns in an article Thursday. The post-2004 UK and Irish immigration boom has contributed to the old EU countries' wariness toward Romania and Bulgarian workers, with just Sweden and Finland opening borders fully from 2007.

Meanwhile, Romanian authorities said 9,000 people crossed the border into Hungary in the first 24 hours after the country's EU accession but that the vast majority went back after drinking a cup of coffee.

Cartoons protester found guilty

2007/01/05 · BBC News

A British Muslim has been found guilty of soliciting murder during a London rally against cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad. Umran Javed was also convicted of using words likely to stir up racial hatred.

Javed, 27, had said: "Bomb, bomb Denmark, bomb, bomb USA." He had claimed his chants were "just slogans" and that he regrets saying them.

Besides there's too damn many candidates, California is bad enough.

Yes, I heard that's one of California's oldest traditions. (One of these days, you'll have to tell me the story of when Peter Ueberroth tried to run for governor for the Republicans, and they turned him down. He must have either had a heckuvan opponent, or you guys made a really stupid decision. Needless to say, I'd hold you personally responsible for the latter.)

German call for EU initiative against right-wing extremism

EU Observer
09.01.2007

German justice minister Brigitte Zypries has called for a Europe-wide initiative to tackle right-wing extremism to be put in place and plans to push ahead with the idea using her country's current presidency of the EU. [..]

"[..] during the EU presidency we are immediately going to make a new attempt to finally lay down uniform standards when it comes to fighting right-wing extremism," she said.

She added that Italy, which had blocked previous plans to get an EU law on the issue off the ground, had now signalled its support for the idea.

An EU law combating racism and xenophobia has been stuck in the legislative pipelines since 2003 with Rome objecting to it in the past on freedom of speech grounds.

The proposed law says that member states should make punishable "public incitement to discrimination, violence or hatred against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin".

It also calls for punishment of "public condoning, denial or gross trivialisation of crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes."

Political discussion on the law in 2005 came unstuck when it was overshadowed by divisive debate on whether Nazi symbols should be banned.

For her part, Ms Zypries also wants to improve cooperation between police forces in Europe.

"The German authorities already have access to criminal records in France, Belgium and Spain," she said, adding "In the coming months I will work towards ensuring that this is possible also in other EU states."

President critical of party he founded

Radio Prague
08-01-2007

Faced with the task of having to appoint a government he does not approve of, President Klaus on Monday sharply criticized the Civic Democrat party he founded in 1991 and of which he is honorary chairman to this day. [..]

Nothing could have shown more clearly how loath President Klaus is to appoint the new centre-right coalition government. In an interview for Tyden he slammed his own party for betraying its policy programme and suggested that the present developments might prompt the birth of a new right wing party or movement which would bear in mind the sharp distinctions between right and left. The president was referring to his party's cooperation with the Greens - and to a lesser extent the centrist Christian Democrats, neither of which belong in the centre-right political arena. [The Greens include leading figures from the intellectual-centrist political network around former President Vaclav Havel, Klaus's past archrival - nimh].

Political analyst Jiri Pehe says that like it or not, the party had little choice in the matter:

"The Civic Democratic Party has in the past programmatically tried to eliminate any opponents on the right. The Freedom Union could have become an ally of the Civic Democratic Party but it was considered to be an opponent or even an enemy of the Civic Democrats. So now the Civic Democratic Party is basically the only right-of-centre conservative party of any standing on the Czech scene and that of course creates problems because the party does not have natural allies."

With just one party right of centre - and not strong enough to rule on its own, one might conclude that this would benefit the left wing Social Democrats but even seventeen years after the fall of communism the Czech political scene remains distorted by the presence of the largely unreformed Communist Party. Fear of having to lean on the Communists is what drives the Greens and the Christian Democrats into right-wing coalitions. Jiri Pehe explains:

"The political spectrum in the Czech Republic still needs to develop because it has an unreformed Communist Party which in a way forces other parties to take tactical stances and behave in an unorthodox manner. Even the Social Democrats sometimes have to go across the political centre to create political alliances with right of centre parties because of the Communists. I think however that in the future the Green Party will probably move back where it belongs - that is left-of-centre."

Jiri Pehe believes that in a few years' time the influence of the communists will wane and the situation on the Czech political scene will become more transparent. Until then any party which enters into government must be prepared to compromise.

"At this point parties in the Czech Republic have to look for tactical and strategic alliances more than for pragmatic alliances. As long as we have a strong Communist Party I think it will stay this way. Unless of course the electoral system is reformed so as to allow the victorious party to rule without having to make compromises. But otherwise I think that political parties in the Czech Republic will have to go for tactical and strategic alliances and they will simply have to put aside some of their ideological goals."

Latvian firm tests EU labour laws

BBC News
Tuesday, 9 January 2007

The EU's laws on labour migration are being tested by a court case about a Latvian firm that offered Latvian pay and conditions for work done in Sweden. Swedish trade unions say collective bargaining agreements are doomed if the European Court of Justice decides in favour of the construction firm, Laval.

Sweden has backed its trade unions while Latvia has lined up behind Laval. "The free movement of services cannot take precedence over such fundamental rights as negotiating a collective agreement or staging industrial action," said Andres Kruse, representing the Swedish government. It has found support from Denmark and other West European countries that fear the impact of a flood of cheap workers.

This is strange

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6261885.stm

Entente plus cordiale

Quote:

German call for EU initiative against right-wing extremism

Europe's far-right, xenophobic and extremist parties crossed a new threshold yesterday, winning more speaking time, money, and political influence in the European Parliament than ever before.

... ... ...

The sweep of extremism in expanded Europe

Romania

Party: Partidul Romania Mare (Greater Romania)
Leader: Corneliu Vadim Tudor
No. of MEPs: 5

Has five ITS members, all from racist, homophobic Greater Romania party, a, nationalist organisation that voted against joining the EU. Among other things, the party despises ethnic Hungarians, Jews and Romas.

United Kingdom

Party: N/A (Independent)
No. of MEPs: 1

British membership of ITS is limited to South East England's independent MEP Ashley Mote. Mr Mote first entered European politics with UKIP but was ejected in 2004 after being tried for benefit fraud.

Austria Italy

Party: Alternativa Sociale, Fiamme Tricolore
Leaders: Alessandra Mussolini and Luca Romagnoli respectively
No. of MEPs: 2

MEPs Alessandra Mussolini, and Luca Romagnoli are both remnants of the Fascist party that ruled Italy for two decades. Mussolini, grand-daughter of Il Duce, is a former glamour model. Neither enjoy mainstream support.

A long-cherished ambition, and a step further than before

Yesterday's developments are the culmination of a long-cherished ambition by Europe's far-right parties to form a recognised bloc in the European Parliament. They have had self-declared groups before, notably when Jean-Marie Le Pen of France's National Front led an alliance called the European Right in Strasbourg in 1984-89, followed by the Technical Group of the European Right in 1989-94. On the ground and away from the parliament, the far right has prospered in several countries since the mid-Eighties. In Austria, Jörg Haider emerged in 1986 as leader of the Freedom Party. The Swiss People's Party, led by Christoph Blocher, became Switzerland's second-strongest political force in 1999. In Denmark, the ultra-right Danish People's Party swept into parliament as the country's third-largest party following the 2001 elections. In Italy, the xenophobic Northern League entered a right-wing coalition in the same year. In Belgium, far-right Flemish separatists have gained support throughout the decade, and the Netherlands was convulsed by the rise of the populist anti-immigration campaigner, Pim Fortuyn.

Dutch ticked off over asylum

Radio Netherlands
12-01-2007

The Netherlands has been well and truly rapped over the knuckles by the European Court of Human Rights. The Strasbourg-based court has ruled that the Netherlands may not eject a Somali asylum seeker from the country, because that is in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights as the man would be in danger in Somalia. The ECHR however ruled that if an insecure situation prevails in a country for a particular group of people, then people who belong to that group may not be returned. The decision will have major consequences for Dutch asylum policy.

A 20-year-old Somali refugee requested asylum in the Netherlands in May 2003. He lived in the north of the country, where a rival clan had murdered his father and brother. The then minister for immigration and integration, Rita Verdonk, refused his asylum request, because the man could not prove that he personally would have been in danger had he returned.

According to Rita Verdonk, there was no direct threat to the asylum seeker himself, but that at worst he would be in danger because of the general instability in the country.

In danger

The Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND) has a rule that an asylum seeker must show that would personally be in danger - to avoid being removed from the Netherlands. According to the European Court, that is in violation of the ban on torture and inhuman punishments.

If an insecure situation prevails in a country for a particular group of people, then people who belong to that group may not be returned to the country. The court concludes, in the case of the Somali man, that he, as a member of a minority group, would find it difficult to be protected in his own country.

It is unusual that the court has come to a decision about the deportation of the Somali man, without him first lodging an appeal with the Council of State [a panel in the Netherlands which gives advice to government on legal matters].

Officially, the European Court can only take on cases when national procedures have been exhausted. In this matter, the court has made a pronouncement anyway, because the asylum seeker expected to have little success with the Council of State. For a long time there has been criticism about this legal body, because it almost always backs the decision as the minister.

Dangerous countries

What's notable too is that the European Court stated that the Netherlands could not base its judgement about the security of a certain country only on a report from the Foreign Affairs Ministry. Information from organisations like the UNHCR, Doctors Without Borders, Amnesty International and a Dutch refugee organisation (VluchtelingenWerk) must also be taken into account.

This has been urged by many authorities in the Netherlands for years, but up to now without success. The foreign ministry report often gives a much more sympathetic picture about security in a country than do human rights or refugee organisations.

The judgement from the court will undoubtedly have favourable consequences for the twelve other Somali asylum seekers who are appealing against their imminent removal from the Netherlands. But it could equally have consequences for asylum seekers from northern Iraq, Afghanistan, Burundi and Colombia; the IND acknowledges that these countries are unstable and yet still sends asylum seekers back there.

Delighted

The refugee organisation, VluchtelingWerk Nederland is delighted with the judgement because it shows that the Dutch asylum policy is too tough. According to director Edwin Huizing, people who need active protection are being ejected from the Netherlands. The organisation argues emphatically that the policy must be changed.

The Dutch state is considering lodging an appeal against the decision in Strasbourg, because the judgement from the European Court of Human Rights would have an impact on a number of key points in the Dutch policy of removal.

Merkel seeks to revive European constitution

By Stephen Castle in Strasbourg and Andrew Grice
Published: 18 January 2007

Germany and Britain are on a collision course over the fate of the European constitution as London has made it clear that it opposes any new treaty that would trigger referendums across the Continent.

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, who has taken over the presidency of the EU, used a speech yesterday in Strasbourg to warn that failure to revive the constitutional treaty would be a "historic mistake" that would leave the EU divided and mired in bureaucracy.

Britain made it plain yesterday that it wants as few changes to the current system as possible, to avoid the need for a popular vote, and called into question the need for any new treaty at all.

Ségolène Royal, the Socialist contender for the French presidency, said a new text should be the subject of another vote in France, which rejected the first one. Since it was rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005 the constitution has been on ice. All 27 EU nations must ratify the document for it to come into force.

... ... ...

School Language Ban Investigated
2007-01-23
Radio Sweden

Sweden's Ombudsman against Ethnic Discrimination is starting an investigation into a school in southern Sweden that has banned the use of any language other than Swedish. [..]

SLOVAKIA: Govt Meddling with Public Media
Jan. 16
IPS

The Slovak government of Robert Fico is said to be pressuring the public media to take more pro-governmental stances. Radim Hreha, the new managing director of Slovak Television (STV), announced that "any form of biased or tabloid attempts to discredit politicians will be banned."

Chief editor of the STV news department Roland Kyska, who had been criticized by government politicians and Fico over STV's lack of coverage of Fico's visit to Italy, was replaced. The head of a controversial current affairs programme was dismissed, and claims that Hreha told him "he was unable to withstand" political pressure.

Fico has been speaking only to domestic media, and has refused to hold any televised debates with political opponents.

Slovak PM and his coalition partner clash over country's WWII past
International Herald Tribune
January 8, 2007

Members of Slovakia's ruling coalition have clashed over a statement by archbishop Jan Sokol, who praised the pro-Nazi priest who ruled Slovakia during World War II. Sokol described Jozef Tiso's rule as a "time of well-being."

In response, PM Fico declared, "Tiso was responsible for the deportation of 70,000 Slovak Jews and for the crackdown on the Slovak resistance movement ... he decorated members of (Nazi) SS troops". He added, "anyone who participated in such things deserves condemnation."

But the head of the Slovak National Party, junior coalition partner in his government, dismissed Fico's comments. "I wasn't even born during Tiso's rule so why would I feel any guilt?" he said.

Basta! Signora Berlusconi demands public apology over his womanising. And she gets it

The Independent
01 February 2007

It has long been one of the strangest marriages in international politics.

But yesterday Silvio Berlusconi's wife Veronica Lario, his partner for 27 years, finally blew her stack.

In a letter dripping with dignity and disdain dispatched to La Repubblica, the Roman daily owned by one of Mr Berlusconi's deadliest business enemies, the wife of Italy's richest man and former prime minister did the impossible: driving the transfer of Ronaldo to Mr Berlusconi's football team AC Milan off the front pages.

The cause for her unprecedented outburst was a very ordinary bit of Berlusconian nonsense. During a gala dinner Silvio accosted the MP Mara Carfagna, one of a group of young women, with the gallant words: "Just look at Carfagna. If I wasn't married already I would marry you right away. I would take you anywhere."

Mr Berlusconi has long been famous for his gaffes, usually hinting at his innumerable conquests. "I love France and I always will," he once quipped. "You only have to count my [French] girlfriends."

"I had to use all my playboy tactics," he remarked of a diplomatic success with Finland's female Prime Minister, "and they haven't been used for some time." That provoked an official protest. [..]

Veronica Lario, the dramatic blue-eyed blonde whose topless appearance on stage in Milan 27 years ago struck Mr Berlusconi "like lightning" as he said at the time, did not rise to these provocations. In all their years together she has been practically invisible. Once in a blue moon she escorts him on official functions - when George Bush came to call, for example. But most of the time she goes to great lengths to preserve her privacy and that of their three children. Occasionally she hints at a streak of wild frustration. Her dream, she once confessed, was to ramble around the world on her own, "a cross," she enthused, "between [Bruce] Chatwin and [Jack] Kerouac."

Mr Berlusconi claimed to live an idyllic existence with Veronica. But sometimes a darker truth seeps out. Speaking to her biographer, she revealed that they never holiday together. "Your husband is very busy, do you often get to see him or speak to him on the telephone?" a journalist asked her once. "There is not only the telephone," she answered smiling. "Sometimes I can even see him on television!" But it is precisely because she has been so good at keeping her head down that she is so devastating on the rare occasions when she decides to raise it. Such as yesterday.

"With difficulty I conquer the reserve which has distinguished my mode of being in the course of the 27 years passed alongside the public man... who is my husband," she began. "I have maintained that my role must be circumscribed mostly within the private dimension, with the scope of bringing serenity and equilibrium within my family." But not any more.

Silvio's very public flirtation with women one-third his age was "injurious to my dignity", she wrote, "and cannot be reduced to a jocular outburst. I request a public apology from my husband... not having received one privately."

The demand was carefully phrased. She had always avoided complaining about her husband, she wrote, because of "extra-familiar" considerations and out of respect for their children.

But there was a limit to such self-effacement: namely, "my dignity as a woman, which must also be an example to our children". "For my daughters, already grown up ... the example of a woman capable of protecting her dignity in her relationships with men assumes a particularly pregnant importance."

It was an awesome performance: the nation held its breath. At 4.40pm, the wires reported the husband's reply. "Dear Veronica, here are my apologies," Mr Berlusconi wrote. [..]

"Here I am, saying I'm sorry. I was recalcitrant in private, because I am playful but proud too. Challenged in public, the temptation to give in to you is strong. I can't resist. We have been together for a whole life. [We have] three adorable children whom you have prepared for life with the care and loving rigour of the splendid person that you are, and which you have always been for me from the first moment that we met and fell in love. Believe me, I have never made a marriage proposal to anyone. So, I beg you, forgive me and accept this public display of a private pride that gives in to your rage as an act of love - just one of many."

EU states 'knew of CIA flights'

BBC News
Tuesday, 23 January 2007

A European Parliament committee has approved a report which says EU states knew of secret CIA flights over Europe.

The report says the governments also knew of the abduction of terror suspects by US agents and the US's use of clandestine detention centres.

But it says claims that the CIA had a secret prison in Poland are unproven.

The report, which goes to a vote of the full parliament next month, also says the UK, Italy and Poland were reluctant to co-operate with the investigation.

1,000 flights

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and EU counter-terrorism co-ordinator Gijs de Vries are accused of failing to reveal all they knew to the special parliamentary committee.

The committee's conclusions, published in draft form November, are similar to those of a separate Council of Europe investigation published last year, which talked of a "global spider's web" of secret flights.

The report says more than 1,000 covert CIA flights crossed European airspace or stopped at European airports.

The volume of flights was greatest in the UK, Germany and Ireland, it adds.

The MEPs say the UK, Poland, Italy, Germany and seven other countries knew of the flights and the detention programme, which may have violated EU human rights law.

Intelligence base

[..] The committee's original draft report stated that: "In the light of... serious circumstantial evidence, a temporary secret detention facility may have been located at the [Polish] intelligence training centre at Stare Kiejkuty."

That sentence has now been amended, to read: "It is not possible to acknowledge that secret special centres were based in Poland."

Odd ones out
Europe's non-white MEPs

Counting those of Turkish descent and two Romas, there are 15 MEPs whose origins lie outside Europe:
UK MEPs: 78. Five non-white MEPs: two Labour, two Conservative, one Lib Dem
Germany MEPs: 99. Three MEPs of Turkish/Kurdish descent: one socialist, one green, one Euro left/Nordic green
France MEPs: 78. Three non-white MEPs: two socialist, one European People's party
Hungary MEPs: 24. Two Roma MEPs: one European People's party, one Alliance of Liberals and Democrats
The Netherlands MEPs: 27. One non-white MEP of Turkish descent: socialist
Belgium MEPs: 24. One non-white MEP: socialist

None of the other 21 EU member states has any non-white MEPs, despite significant ethnic minority populations in countries such as Italy (78 MEPs) and Spain (54 MEPs).